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French Destroyers: torpilleurs d'escadre and contre-torpilleurs JOHN JORDAN and JEAN MOULIN 299 pp., 17 colour drawings, c.300 b&w plans, line drawings, photographs Seaforth Publishing, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S70 2AS, 2015, £40 (hbk), ISBN 978-184832

2016; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 45; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/1095-9270.12160

1095-9270

Andrew Lambert,

Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

When the First World War ended France had fallen behind the other major naval powers in the design and construction of modern destroyers. Having endured what amounted to an 18-year holiday in destroyer design, France had little experience of high-speed geared turbines, oil-fired boilers or high-speed ships. The only modern destroyers in the fleet were a flotilla of small units built in Japan, and a few larger ex-German craft. Destroyers and cruisers became the priority for the post-war reconstruction of the Marine Nationale. The authors examined the latter in the companion volume French Cruisers of 2013, (reviewed in IJNA 44.2, 4745). By 1918, standard British, German and American destroyers displaced around 1500 tons, carried four 100–120 mm guns and six torpedoes, with improved sea-keeping, and top speeds well in excess of 30 knots. The best example was the British V class: France nearly bought some incomplete units from Britain before a devaluation of the franc made them unattractive. The failure to acquire British V- and W-class ships was a lost opportunity to study best practice. These tough, durable and, above all, well-balanced ships were superb all-rounders, and survived in large numbers, making a serious contribution in the Second World War. Instead the Marine Nationale pressed on with indigenous designs, emphasizing a specific set of characteristics drawn from a particular reading of the last war; characteristics that proved to be at a discount when war broke out in 1939. French inter-war destroyers were divided into two distinct categories. The torpilleurs d'escadre, designed to escort the battle fleet, were similar to those of other major navies in size and all-round performance. These standard destroyers followed the British V class, but limited design experience left the first two classes with serious design flaws, lacking stability and endurance. In addition, the French created the contre torpilleur a larger, faster and powerful flotilla vessel; a ship that combined the highest speeds yet achieved by large warships with the firepower and displacement of a First World War light cruiser. They were designed for high-speed reconnaissance, surface gunnery and torpedo attack, operating in three-ship units. These ships were strikingly ambitious, the early classes suffered similar problems to the standard designs—limited stability, low endurance, and slow-firing guns. The contre torpilleur had been inspired by the large destroyers that Britain, Italy and Germany built as section leaders, but the French type became a distinct warship. Displacing 2000–3000 tons, crammed with engines and boilers and heavily armed for surface combat against similar ships, successive classes were upgraded, but they remained seriously flawed, both conceptually and technically. Racing through the ocean at up to 40 knots made great headlines and impressed statisticians, but at such speeds gunnery fire control was impossible, and fast as they were, such ships could not outrun aircraft, against which they had no effective defence. Nor were they fitted with sonar to direct their tiny anti-submarine weapon load. This was not of much moment; they answered the helm so slowly, because the rudders were kept small to reduce drag, that they could not chase a submerged submarine. The hulls were built of poor-quality steel, another consequence of the long hiatus in French construction, while their massive power plants took a decade to become reliable, and consumed huge quantities of fuel at cruising speeds. Yet the real problem was conceptual, the ships were seriously compromised by the pursuit speeds and surface firepower, qualities that became less and less relevant as monoplane aircraft made the narrow seas untenable, while the oceanic warfare of the Second World War emphasized durability, endurance and effective combat power in all three dimensions. The contre torpilleur was a poor investment, approaching the size, and cost of a light cruiser, without the range, endurance or sea-keeping to command the ocean. The detailed class-by-class technical history of these ships is followed by an account of the naval operations in which they served, stretching from the invasion of Norway to the British Eastern fleet in 1945. War was not kind to the French destroyers. They suffered heavy losses at the evacuation of Dunkirk, a situation far removed from the anticipated open-ocean fleet-on-fleet encounters. Obliged to operate in confined coastal waters, they were exposed to sustained Luftwaffe and motor-torpedo-boat attacks without the firepower and manoeuvrability to defend themselves. The Armistice only offered partial relief. In July 1940, Mogador, the last and largest contre torpilleur survived a direct hit from a 15-inch shell at Mers-el Kebir, her sister ship used her impressive speed, well over 40 knots, to outrun British destroyers that struggled to make much more than 30, and escaped to Toulon. After that French ships fought under different flags. Vichy units were lost fighting the British at Dakar, and off Syria, more were lost resisting British and American landings at Algiers and Casablanca in early November 1942. Most of the remaining units were scuttled at Toulon on the 27th, when Operation Torch prompted a German attempt to seize the fleet. The wrecks were taken over by Italy, and some were raised, only to be sunk a second time by American bombers. Three worn out old contre-torpilleurs, Tigre, Panthère and Léopard escaped sabotage, and provided some service to their new masters, before the Germans took them over. None of the others ever went to sea again. Reconditioning foreign warships was no longer as easy as it had been in Nelson's day. The British response to the contre torpilleur Léopard was unequivocal; they stripped out half the boilers, added extra fuel tanks and deployed the ship as an escort. Modern units of the spectacular la Fantasque class that joined the Allies were refitted in the United States, where their astonishing speed made quite an impression. Reclassified as light cruisers they served in the Mediterranean, where high-speed surface action still occurred. These ships were far from comfortable on the lower deck, invariably overcrowded because so much space had been taken up for officer accommodation and entertainment. The Americans stripped out such fripperies during the refits. In an echo of 1918, France received some German and Italian destroyers as war indemnity in 1945, and built a successful class of fleet escorts based on the pre-war le Hardi design, with superior anti-air and anti-submarine equipment. After service in Indochina the pre-war ships had all been disposed of by 1956. This is a majestic testament to some of the most spectacular destroyers ever built, rakishly handsome ships, with hull forms and funnels that conveyed the sense of speed, creating an impression wherever they went. Yet the author's assessment of these deeply flawed warships is conclusive. Low-grade steel led to hull erosion, the search for speed compromised manoeuvrability, instability seriously hampered sea-going performance in the earlier classes, slow-firing guns made fire control problematic, while the pursuit of ever more sophisticated systems, and higher specifications in the 1930s left the fleet toothless, crippled by breakdowns. The authors ask ‘whether the concept of an exceptionally fast, technically advanced and heavily armed destroyer was correct’ (p. 192). The answer is obvious. Little wonder France tried to buy standard American destroyers in 1940, ships with dual-purpose main guns, high-angle fire control, and reliable machinery that provided adequate range for Pacific operations. Among the many reflections that this rich resource prompts is one about the politics and identity of the Marine Nationale. Having missed all the major actions of the First World War, with the less than agreeable exception of the Dardanelles, the French Navy had no new glories to celebrate, and few heroes. Alongside a few new ship names from the land war, notably Verdun, the majority of contre-torpilleurs were named for men and ships that fought against the Royal Navy. This reflected an enduring hostility towards Great Britain, France's most significant ally in the last conflict within the service. Little wonder the Marine Nationale was unwilling to continue the war after the Armistice. The design, layout and production of the book equals the high standards established by Seaforth technical histories, with a succession of striking images, detailed plans and diagrams that enhance and expand the text.